


the school trip

by edenfell (ricecrispbees)



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Horror, Implied Relationships, Other, POV First Person, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 23:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20182474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricecrispbees/pseuds/edenfell
Summary: A "short" story I wrote two years ago for a class assignment, told from the point of view of one Jaxon Kabaitan detailing an encounter with a monster he had during a class field trip.





	the school trip

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't bother editing anything since I wanted to preserve 14-year-old me's writing style lol. Sorry if that's a problem.

In my junior year of high school, we had a field trip for our American History class to a historical society about fifteen miles away. We were supposed to go around and look at an old mine that hadn’t been used in ages but used to be used to draw iron and gold from the ground. It didn’t seem very interesting to me, in all honesty, but I had a massive crush on a male student in my class, and knowing that he would be there was probably the only reason I decided to go at all. His name was Paul and he was around six feet tall, kind of buff but kind of not, and had coarse brown hair and stubble around his face. While he does sound like a pretty normal guy at first, there are two things besides his height that could set him apart from any crowd; first off, his eyes were like a stark robin’s-egg-blue color that you could see from across the classroom. Second, his parents were both European immigrants, his mom being Dutch and his dad bring French. As such, he has a pretty heavy accent that’s a little bit of both. These sound like fairly irrelevant details, but trust me when I say these will be important later on.

Now, Paul and I were pretty good friends, but I secretly hoped I’d find a way to somehow get closer to him during this trip. He seemed about as visibly excited for it as I was, but we both agreed that going there would at least be better than dealing with our other classes for the day. A mutual friend of ours, Vicky, shared the same sentiment, and during a conversation over lunch she mentioned an idea that immediately sparked my interest; after doing some research, she’d found that there was a pretty sizable forest by the historical site. Being the profound idiots we were, we agreed to slip off and mess around back there instead of go on the actual trip. Not a very smart idea on our part, but in our defense, we were all sixteen and Vicky told us she’d steal some booze for the trip as well. Paul was actually nearing seventeen at the time, but that wasn’t the point. The point is, I realized that going off into the woods would likely give me a chance to strengthen my bond with Paul, or so I thought, and I managed to wholeheartedly convince myself it would happen, so any ideas of potential disasters breaking out completely slipped my mind.

The day of the trip came and we were all pretty excited, not to tour some stupid mine but to just go hang out in the woods together. Vicky had recently invested in some flasks disguised to look like some of her personal products and we planned to sneak the drinks out in that. It actually went pretty well; no one questioned Vicky about what she had in her bag, so the alcohol successfully made it onto the bus with us. The bus ride wasn’t that long, so we all sat together and quietly discussed what we were going to do. No one really questioned us, and when we got there, no one caught us slip off, either.

Sometimes, however, I wish we  _ had _ been caught.

We all snuck off when no one was looking. We walked straight in for somewhere between thirty seconds to a minute, and when we looked back, we knew there was no way anyone would be able to see us from where we were unless they physically went into the woods with us. We looked all around to find that there was no way out in sight. Vicky warned us not to drink too much because even though she’d brought some pretty weak and slightly watered-down stuff, she didn’t want any of us getting too intoxicated to walk back out. We all agreed that it would be a bad idea to drink so much anyway, though Paul and I weren’t that big a fan of weak booze. We took a couple of shots before Paul decided he wanted to explore the area a little bit, and despite the fact that our drinks were weak, the little bit of alcohol in my system messed with my decision-making a bit, so I agreed. Taking another gulp, I looked over to Paul.

“So, where to first?” I closed the flask and slipped it into my pocket. Despite the fact that Vicky had intentionally watered down our drinks a bit, I was already beginning to feel a bit off. I wasn’t very good at handling alcohol back then and still struggle with it today.

Paul shrugged. “God only knows how big these woods are. Let’s try...that way first.” He pointed off to some vague direction and Vicky and I agreed.

“Sure, why not.” Vicky finished off her flask and shoved it into her pocket. She motioned for us to follow her and we did, the leaves crunching under our shoes. I was beginning to loosen up a bit by this point, and part of me wanted to try making some flirty remarks to Paul and make a grab for his hand. Fortunately, I was still sober enough to know that that was a bad idea.

“Hey, you guys see that?” Paul squinted off in the distance and I tried to pinpoint just what it was he was seeing.

“Woah.” Vicky and I stopped dead in our tracks as we began to focus on what our much taller friend was seeing. Off in the distance, hidden within a cluster of trees, was a run-down and measly little house with a wooden exterior rotted and grey. To be honest, I’m not even sure “house” is the right term; it seemed more like a very large shack to me. It was something right out of a horror movie, and since the three of us were just so bright, we decided that the absolute best thing to do at this very moment was to go inside and check it out.

“I read on the historical site’s webpage that miners used to construct temporary homes near the mine for convenience purposes, but this far into the woods…?” She cocked her head. Paul and I were equally confused as well.

“You know what that means, then.” A cocky grin slithered its way onto Paul’s face, and as attractive as it was, I was  _ not _ about to let him drag us into there. At least, not at first.

“Paul Vandenberg-Beaumont, you’d better not be planning on dragging us in there.” Vicky warned in a sort of “mom friend” voice.

“Aw, Vick,” Paul begged. “Pleeease? Only for a few seconds?” His face suddenly lit up as though he’d gotten an idea. “Hey...didn’t either of you hear the teacher say we needed to write a report or whatever on what we see here? Well, we’ll have to write about something cool, won’t we? Might as well be this and not some boring cave, am I right?”

He was not, but I was somewhat under the influence and extremely in love with him, so I found myself agreeing with this asinine plan. Vicky just sighed and went along with it.

“Whatever. If we die, I’m going to follow you straight into Hell and be your personal tormentor for the rest of eternity.” She took her phone out of her pocket and turned the flashlight feature on. Cautiously, we approached the run-down building and I immediately felt chills down my spine. The light from Vicky’s phone showed a crack in the door, and through it I could see a hallway that was in a great state of disrepair. The wallpaper was torn, the wooden floors were heavily rotted, and a window directly in the back had been smashed, boarded up, and then had the boards hacked away. It was disturbing for me to look at, and I instinctively made a grab for the arm of the nearest person: Paul. Surprisingly, he didn’t try to shake me off.

“Right, so,” He instead said nervously. “Vick, Jax, maybe this  _ wasn’t _ such a good idea…”

“You know what? No. You  _ did _ say we had to write that paper anyway, right?” Vicky sneered, pushing open the door. “Might as well write it on something  _ interesting _ , right?” That booze must have kicked in for her too. This wouldn’t end well.

“Come on, Vick, let’s just go turn ourselves into the chaperones…” I said, nervously clutching Paul’s arm tighter. Paul did the same to my arm, and even now I can’t say I blame him for it.

“Hell no.” Vicky snorted. “I’m gonna leave y’all two dweebs out here for the wolves if you don’t come with me.” She looked back at us for a moment before heading in. Paul and I exchanged another look. No way were we about to let our best friend wander off into this place herself. It appeared to be a lot bigger from the inside, anyway, which only made the whole thing more nerve-wracking for Paul and I. We followed her into the small hallway, which couldn’t have been any wider than a set of double doors and was actually a pretty tight fit considering the fact that I had a six-foot-tall man clutching my arm like a teddy bear. I would have been ecstatic about the contact if I wasn’t terrified half out of my mind.

With each step we took, the floor beneath us creaked. Our breathing became collective and so heavy that it occurred to me that if anyone else was here, they’d no doubt have heard us by now. I swallowed nervously to try and restore some wetness to my now parched throat and noticed that Vicky didn’t seem to think this was such a bright idea either. There were two rooms and a staircase off to the side leading up to what I could only assume at the time was a loft-type room with a bit of railing blocking off the sides.

“Wonder what’s in here…” Vicky opened the door to our left. All we could see was a rusty old bed and a weathered down chest, but Paul tapped my shoulder and pointed upwards. I choked back a gasp as I realized there was a gap in the ceiling, like some of the boards above the bed had been hacked off with a hatchet of some sort.

“Nothing to see here, I guess. Paul, lemme have the last of your booze, ya big dope.” Here was Vicky, queen of the mom friends and the same person telling us not to drink too much, demanding more alcohol be put in her system. Reluctantly, Paul handed it over and asked me for mine as a replacement. I let him have it since I didn’t feel like drinking much more anyway. Happily, Paul chugged the last of mine and stuffed the flask in his pocket, giving me an intoxicated grin that displayed an odd mix between grateful and extremely terrified. Despite all this, it was still a nice sight to see and calmed me down a bit.

“Scoot.” Vicky downed some of what was once Paul’s and moved us off to the side of the cramped hallway to get to the other door. Sadly for her but fortunately for Paul and I, the room was empty. I sighed with relief.

“Well, you know what that means.” I laughed nervously. “Time to go back now. I’m sure we can find some sort of excuse that’ll cover why we were gone for so long…”

“There’s still one place we haven’t looked yet.” Vicky pointed out, and I felt my heart freeze. Paul’s grip on my arm tightened exponentially.

“Excuse me.” He squeaked out. “You don’t mean…?”

“Up there?” Vicky pointed her thumb upwards. “Yeah. I do mean that. Hey, Jax, why don’t you be the one to go up and look?”

“Me?!” I felt my chest tighten. I looked over at Paul and saw that he was clearly very scared of this place and wanted out. “No. No way, Vicky. This has gone too far.”

“What? Are you both scaaared?” She taunted. I had no idea this girl was so mean when she drank.

“Don’t be a jerk, Vicky. This place really is scary.” Paul whined.

“Well, we aren’t leaving ‘till Jax gets his scrawny butt upstairs and has a look around.” Vicky crossed her arms. “You’ve got your phone on you, right? Use the flashlight on that thing ‘cuz I’m not letting you touch mine. Paul got the idea to go exploring and found this place, I had the suggestion of going in and explored two rooms, so now it’s your turn to get the last of the place. Then and only then can we go back.”

If only Paul and I had had the balls to tell her “no”.

“Fine,” is what I said instead, drawing in a sharp breath. “You two wait here.” Paul looked terrified out of his mind and it was probably only being amplified by the alcohol, so I decided to be a good person and prove to him and him alone that nothing was up there. I gingerly crept up the stairs, the wooden stairs creaking underneath my beaten up sneakers and I trembling the whole way. I made it to the top of the landing and looked around the room slowly but carefully, shining the flashlight of my phone the whole way. There wasn’t anything there but a few small wooden crates covered in moldy sheets, and a few patches of the tin roof above me had some dents and holes in them. Nothing to be seen here. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“We’re good, guys.” I called down to Vicky and Paul. I turned around and went back down the stairs...only to find that the other two were nowhere to be seen. My heart froze once again, freezing all the muscles within a three-inch radius alongside it.

“Vicky?” I called out nervously. “Paul?”

The door out was slightly ajar. I looked out and peeked around the side of the house. No one was there. I suddenly became aware of the sound of floorboards creaking and whipped around to see Paul standing at the top of the stairs, his back to me for whatever reason. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, man, thank god it’s you.” I chuckled nervously. “Where’s Vicky? And how did you get up there so quick?”

What happened next still haunts me to this day.

I became aware of the sound of whispering and realized it was coming from who I still thought was Paul.

“Dude, are you okay…?” I asked him. There was no answer.

Suddenly, the figure whipped its head around to stare at me. In the current lighting, I couldn’t see its face very well, so I still thought it was Paul...until it opened its mouth and said in a raspy, almost inhuman voice, “Who do you think you are?”

My stomach dropped into my feet. Praying that this was just some sort of sick prank, I raised my flashlight up to look at the figure’s face. I reeled back in horror at what I saw. It’s eyes were something I still can’t describe today, even after years of recounting this story at parties. They weren’t the robin’s-egg-blue that I could get lost in for days; it almost seemed like it had no eyes at all. One thing was certain, though: that was  _ not  _ Paul, whatever it was. 

At this point, I didn’t care what had happened to Vicky and the real Paul. I was thoroughly terrified and immediately bolted out of that place. Behind me, I heard a shrill, animalistic screech followed by rapidly approaching footsteps on the wooden floors of that ramshackle old cabin. I didn’t dare look back even as I heard something chasing me at a pace I feared for my life I wouldn’t be able to outrun. Fortunately, however, I had at least enough sense to run directly out of the woods and onto the property of the historical society. People were sitting down and eating lunch and I happened to see Paul and Vicky being chewed out by a chaperone. They saw me running and immediately made their way over to me, the chaperone shouting at them to come back.

“Dude!” Paul threw his arms around me, relieved to see me alive and well. “Where were you?”

I couldn’t reply; I was too out of breath. Instead, I found myself collapsing to the ground and out of Paul’s grasp in a matter of seconds. My friends immediately took action; apparently they were rude enough to ditch me in the middle of the woods but not rude enough to help me when I was suffering the consequences of it. Long story short, Paul helped me up and Vicky lifted my arms above my head to aid my breathing while pegging me with questions. It turns out they’d heard someone calling to them from outside of the cabin and that they’d been caught by a chaperone. They weren’t given any other choice but to leave, though I still don’t see why they hadn’t at least told me first. Paul later admitted that they were too scared from being caught to do so. I didn’t tell them what exactly had happened until around two weeks later when the trauma of that event had subsided a little. They both felt awful for putting me through such a thing, and we haven’t done anything this stupid since.

Paul and I have been married for almost ten years now and we still have yet to come up with an explanation for what I saw. I still have nightmares about whatever that  _ thing _ was to this day, but fortunately, my husband is always here to calm me down after the fact. Every time I tell this story, I ask my audience to take one thing and one thing only from this: keep your shenanigans close and your liquor closer, but never let the two combine.


End file.
